Barely a year after the National Association of Realtors settled a lawsuit and rewrote the rules for how agents get paid, the powerful trade group is examining the fate of another policy that could change how homes are bought and sold across the country.
The policy, known as Clear Cooperation, requires agents to list homes on shared databases known as multiple listing services (MLS) within one business day of beginning to market the properties. The rule is designed to cut down on what are known as “off-market” or “pocket” listings, where a home for sale is marketed semi-privately to small pools of potential buyers without being advertised widely on the MLS.
Since it took effect in 2020, the policy has sparked fierce debate within the real estate world and at times pitted its top players against each other. Proponents argue that the rule helps ensure that the industry follows fair housing laws and helps sellers secure top prices for their homes by putting them in front of the broadest pool of potential buyers. Opponents, meanwhile, say sellers should get to dictate how their homes are marketed and argue that the MLS listing requirement violates antitrust laws.
Read more: Is it a buyer's market or a seller's market? Learn the difference.
The NAR is currently reviewing whether the rule should be repealed, remain in place, or be changed. At a time when the number of homes for sale remains below historical norms and brokerages have consolidated, the decision has implications for how hundreds of thousands of homes are marketed and sold each year.
“We take for granted that you can go to any portal ... and have a complete and total data set that’s accurate in real time,” said Leo Pareja, the CEO of eXp Realty. “That only comes from the cooperative structure we have set up where everyone shares everything.”
A profitable niche
Pareja thinks his firm, the country’s largest by agent count, would benefit if the policy is repealed. But he’d like to see it stay in place because he believes more transparency is better and cheaper for consumers.
Where most real estate companies fall on the issue tends to align with whether or not they benefit from the rule. Executives at Zillow and Redfin, which aggregate home listings from the MLS, are for it. Compass, a luxury-focused brokerage that touts its access to “Private Exclusives,” is against it. Anywhere Real Estate, the parent company of franchises including Century 21, Coldwell Baker, and Sotheby's International Realty, has said it would like to see the rule remain but with changes.
